1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to processing system debugging and in particular, to debugging a method multiprocessor system.
2. Description of the Related Art
The ability to process audio information has become increasingly important in the personal computer (PC) environment. Among other things, audio support is important requirement for in many multimedia applications, such as gaming and telecommunications. Audio functionality is therefore typically available on most conventional PCs, either in the form of an add-on audio board or as a standard feature provided on the motherboard itself. In fact, PC users increasingly expect not only audio functionality but high quality sound capability. Additionally, digital audio plays a significant role outside the traditional PC realm, such as in compact disk players, VCRs and televisions. As the audio technology progresses, digital applications are becoming increasingly sophisticated as improvements in sound quality and sound effects are sought.
One of the key components in many digital audio information processing systems is the decoder. Generally, the decoder receives data in a compressed form and converts that data into a decompressed digital form. The decompressed digital data is then passed on for further processing, such as filtering, expansion or mixing, conversion into analog form, and eventually conversion into audible tones. In other words the decoder must provide the proper hardware and software interfaces to communicate with the possible compressed (and decompressed) data sources, as well as the destination digital and/or audio devices. In addition, the decoder must also perform additional functions appropriate to the decoder subsystem of a digital audio system, such as the mixing of various received digital and/or audio data streams.
As with many combination hardware and software systems, an audio decoder must be provided with some means of allowing software debugging. This is especially true for complex audio decoder systems which can decode received data in any one of a number of formats, as well as perform a number of other desirable processing operations. In particular, the ability to perform debugging of any hardware/software system, such as an advanced audio decoder, during actual operation is of critical importance to overall system development and testing. Therefore, the need has arisen for methods of debugging complex combination hardware and software systems, including, but not limited to advanced audio decoders.